National community oncology care network, OneOncology and molecular information company, Foundation Medicine have announced a new joint initiative intended to help physicians unlock the potential of precision oncology through comprehensive genomic profiling (CGP) and research.
The partnership will empower physicians across OneOncology’s nearly 170 community oncology care sites to drive better personalized treatment plans, including through the use of targeted therapies, immunotherapies and clinical trials, the companies announced today.
Lee Schwartzberg, M.D., chief medical officer at OneOncology, said the company is excited to optimize CGP and its power to inform more personalized care across its network. Nashville-based OneOncology was launched in September 2018 with $200 in funding to build a network of community cancer centers and has grown to include five large community oncology practices representing over 400 providers practicing at nearly 170 sites of care across the U.S.
“This innovative partnership is designed to help expand our ability to deliver advanced precision oncology services for every cancer patient at our OneOncology partner practices,” Schwartzberg said. “I am a big proponent of understanding the molecular landscape of a patient’s cancer in order to determine the appropriate treatment course for patients with advanced cancer over multiple lines of therapy.”
The new partnership includes a research collaboration that will focus on accelerating molecular insights and patient care through the use of clinico-genomic datasets. Foundation Medicine and OneOncology have developed the partnership in the hope that this research will not only advance patient care for OneOncology, but for patients being treated at other centers and practices, leaders from the companies said.
As part of the partnership, OneOncology will contribute its patient data to advance the research and address gaps in current clinical knowledge regarding cancer treatments. Together, OneOncology and Foundation Medicine will also explore innovative approaches to clinical trial design.
“Through this partnership, we have the opportunity to design studies from the patients’ perspective and create rapid learning environments to advance patient care,” said Brian Alexander, M.D., M.P.H., chief medical officer at Foundation Medicine, based in Cambridge, Mass. “This is particularly important for diseases for which there is no standard of care where we need to learn and test hypotheses in new ways.”
Cindy Perettie, chief executive officer at Foundation Medicine said leveraging OneOncology’s nationwide network of community oncology practices and Foundation Medicine’s commitment to delivering personalized medicine insights at the point of care marks a new type of collaboration. “We look forward to sharing our key learnings and insights along the way” she said. “The majority of patients are treated in a community setting, and through this partnership, we are excited to provide more oncologists with high-quality tools to help inform their treatment decisions.”
Foundation Medicine offers a full suite of comprehensive genomic profiling assays to identify the molecular alterations in a patient’s cancer and match them with relevant targeted therapies, immunotherapies and clinical trials, the company said.
